Across the Hall

A freshman student at Lakeland High School might ask, “Where is Hall’s classroom?”

An appropriate response would be either “Which one?” or “Hall’s classroom is right across the hall from Hall’s classroom.” Obviously, this could lead to some confusion. 

This isn’t the only confusion that happens. Oftentimes, one sister might receive an email meant for the other. However, since they both hold the same last name, it is always a safe bet to just say, “Hall.” 

Shannon Hall and Colleen Hall both teach at LHS across the hall from each other. The teachers are twin sisters. 

Shannon Hall has been teaching English for 28 years. She teaches several English classes and then also has classes like Movies as Literature and Modern Fiction as electives. 

In Movies as Literature, students will watch a wider variety of movies and do projects on them. In Modern Fiction, students will 

“I love all the classes I teach. In my sophomore English class, I like all the literature we read. My two elective classes, Movies as Literature and Modern Fiction, are classes that I don’t have to stress about, and they are fun,” Shannon Hall said.

Shannon Hall was inspired to become a teacher by her mother. She saw that they could live comfortably on a teacher’s salary and the time that she could spend with her family.

The English teacher didn’t have excellent English teachers while she was in high school, so she decided to try and fix that for the next generation of students. 

Shannon Hall is also the coach for the LHS Cross Country team in the Fall and the tennis team in the Spring. Hall is also the advisor for the Clean and Green club, an environmental club that picks up trash around the school.

The coach began running in her 30s and became the coach of the Cross Country team to help her continue running in her adult life. Hall wanted to try something new by coaching tennis and is enjoying the program.

Colleen Hall is a speech teacher at LHS. Hall teaches the sophomore speech class, the college level Comm 101, and Improv. Hall has been teaching for 28 years.

Colleen also participates in speech districts, a public speaking competition for the high school level. If students have a place high enough, then they can go to speech state. Hall also helps local community theater groups.

Hall has always wanted to become a teacher since she was a kid.

Colleen and Shannon would play “school” as children.  Colleen and her other sisters would pretend to be students and teachers and even have desks set up to listen to the lectures.

Hall originally wanted to be a math teacher but changed her mind after becoming a math tutor. Once she took her speech class in her junior year of high school, she fell in love.

Colleen Hall said, “Shannon and I are best friends, and it always makes the day a lot of fun.”

Shannon Hall said, “It’s awesome to work right next to someone I’m really close with.”